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Buffalo Bills stadium report delayed, because writing is hard!

A New York state-commissioned report on the future home of the Buffalo Bills that was expected to arrive Friday didn’t, with the Associated Press citing “a person familiar with” the consulting firm blaming “the large volume of information.” Yeah, I’ve used that excuse too.

While we wait for the report, though, it looks like Buffalo elected officials are increasingly declining to take the Buffalo News’s bait that a new stadium is inevitable, and it’s just a matter of where to put it:

County Executive Mark Poloncarz tells 2 On Your Side his preference is at this point is a renovation of Ralph Wilson Stadium.

“I’ve said all along the one thing we cannot do is take off the table Ralph Wilson Stadium. We’re investing $130 million there, one of the reasons it was done was not only to make it good for the next five to ten years, but many years thereafter. After the investments we’re doing now it’s going to be a different stadium and when people go there this fall they’re going to realize that it’s still very viable to have the Ralph as the home of the Bills,” said Poloncarz.

We also asked Mayor Byron Brown about whether he thinks a new stadium is needed to keep the team in Western New York.

“I’m not sure about that,” said Brown. “I certainly want to see the team stay in this community for the long term and if a new stadium is needed, if a new stadium is required, I think it makes sense for us to accomplish that.”

It’s probably too soon to call this a major shift — even politicians who want to build new stadiums often say they’ll look at renovation, if only so they can reject it later — but taken along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s subtle rhetorical shifts, it looks like Buffalo elected officials are at least realizing that building a whole new stadium for a team that just got a renovated one is going to be a hard sell. We’ll see what they say once they get a look at the clear plastic binder.

One comment on “Buffalo Bills stadium report delayed, because writing is hard!”

I can tell you why that report is delayed. They are looking at some way to tug at the heartstrings. For example, so and so is dying and would want to see the Super Bowl in the new stadium before his or her death. (Bonus points if the close to death is underage.) Also, the Bills are figuring out which city to target. Should it be Farmer’s Field in LA or some other location.